The Language Learning Specialists
uTalk Founder Dick Howeson and in-house language expert Nat Dinham were quizzed about the company’s ethos in an interview with New York-based podcaster and speaker Fiel Sahir this week. Here are some of the highlights: Why uTalk’s content includes the basics There’s a reason why the app always includes the words written on men’s and … Read more
All the reindeer may have laughed and called Rudolph names, but what about the strange names of Donner and Blitzen? Donner and Blitzen, together with Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, and Cupid, were all named by American writer Clement Clarke Moore in his 1823 poem, ‘The Night Before Christmas’. And the poet originally gave Donner … Read more
Spoiler alert: it was a mistake! Our Brit forebears got in a flap when it came to naming the festive feathered fowl because it didn’t come from Turkey. The story goes that they named it after the sea merchants from Turkey who imported the bird, incorrectly assuming that the bird originated from their country. But … Read more
Organisers of the competition – now called The uTalk Challenge – want to spread the word about languages to even more children. Language learning company uTalk is looking to stage the competition in other countries including India, where it’s already being trialled, as well as Greece and Nigeria. And it wants to make the competition better … Read more
Competitors in our uTalk Challenge Final took language learning to a whole new level with not one but two tie breaks. The competition, held at London’s Olympia, was so tightly contested that it had to go into extra time as two players drew for first place and two more for third place – only one point … Read more
Niharika Nudurumati’s mum says her daughter put in extra hours of practice – when she was asleep! “Sometimes when she is asleep, she sleep talks in the new language she just learnt and I would be searching upon google translate to know what she is saying,” says mum Vindhya Kothuri from Linton, Cambridge. Niharika, we’re … Read more
Languages say something about our culture and our soul, according to uTalk’s language guru (pictured). Which is why Brian Loo Soon Hua, who knows upwards of eight languages, is worried about the number of endangered languages on the verge of becoming extinct. ‘Languages are going extinct and regional differences are slowly dying out,’ he says. … Read more
UK youngsters, who have clocked up three new languages in nine months, are now just weeks away from the Final of a national language learning competition. Top prize in the uTalk Junior Language Challenge 2018 Final, on Fri Nov 9 at London’s Olympia, is a family holiday of a lifetime to Africa. But, to … Read more
Here’s the five Gut and Wurst things you need to know about the language: Lots of similar words: Around 40% of German words are similar to English ones because they once shared the same ancestral language. Shared words include Hammer (hammer), Freund (friend) and gut (good) as well as phrases like was ist das? (what is that?) and … Read more
It’s not a wind-up if someone in Rwanda, Africa looks at a clock face reading seven o’clock and tells you it’s one o’clock. It’s because speakers of the local language, Kinyarwanda, measure daytime from sunrise, which they call 12 o’clock in the morning, through to sunset, which they call 12 o’clock in the evening. … Read more